This study compared perceptions of teacher efficacy beliefs and concerns about teaching in pre-service teacher cohorts from New Zealand, Malaysia, and England. Participants were primary pre-service teachers from Malaysia (n = 53), New Zealand (n = 100), and England (n = 119), who completed the Teachers' Sense of Efficacy (long form)…

Developing sustainable e-learning requires a better understanding of the perceptions and preferences of e-learning providers and e-learners on the four crucial dimensions for elearning success including pedagogies, technologies, learning resources and management of learning resources. There is, however, little research on evaluating whether these…

This study investigates who chooses primary teaching and how prospective primary school teachers differ from future teachers in other types of schools. Using variance analysis, future student-teachers of different types of schools are compared with regard to their motives for the choice of studies and profession. As a main result, prospective…

The purpose of this study is a qualitative comparison of Israeli and U.S. teachers' views and attitudes toward parents' involvement in school. Fifty-six elementary school and secondary school teachers in Israel and in the state of Maryland, USA were asked to define parents' involvement, their feelings towards it, and its challenges and strengths.…

This paper examines pre-service teacher outcomes associated with service learning in domestic and international settings. Participants included upper-division, undergraduate-level pre-service teachers who participated in service learning experiences in either local, domestic settings (Orange County, CA) or international settings (Shanghai and…

Considerable research has been conducted into teacher retention and attrition (Huberman, 1989; Dinham, 1995; Ewing & Smith, 2002). Little is known, though, of the circumstances of ex-teachers, in terms of factors such as salary, workload, working conditions and "job prestige". For this paper, telephone interviews were conducted with 22…

Nursing students with second degrees have become the focus of great interest in the last two decades in terms of being an answer to the nursing shortage. They are thought to possess greater ability to critically think and engage in self directed learning behaviours, and possess greater motivation to master clinical skills. The purpose of this…

This paper reviews the literature on the use of intensive teaching formats in the tertiary sector. The paper begins with a summary of recent changes in higher education which have led to the consideration of intensive teaching as a mode of learning. The paper then addresses two principal issues: the advantages and disadvantages of intensive…

This paper discusses grounded theory as one of the qualitative research designs. It describes how grounded theory generates from data. Three phases of grounded theory--open coding, axial coding, and selective coding--are discussed, along with some of the issues which are the source of debate among grounded theorists, especially between its…

In recent years, organisations and institutions of higher learning have adopted group/team structures to facilitate learning and goal completion. A number of methods have been used to better understand and facilitate group learning. In this paper, I explore one such method: collaborative critical thinking, heretofore, a relatively unknown…

Two seminal reports on the state of education advantage and disadvantage in so called "rich nations" were released in 2002 by the international agencies OECD (2002a) and UNICEF (2002). These complex reports are brought to the attention of those at the very centre of the education debate, the general public, through the public media. What the…